Last weekend, TSU became a platform for parliamentary student debates. The tournament is called Imperial Dispute. It takes place in the British parliamentary format that is the most common for the student audience.

Parliamentary debates are an international student movement. The conditions of a tournament consisting of several games are as follows: in each game, eight people are divided into four teams and must defend the position “for” or “against” on this or that question. At the same time, they get the position randomly, regardless of the real opinions of the participants about the given topic. The topic and your team position will be known only 15 minutes before the game, and this is all the time you have to prepare.

- Participants should quickly take in the situation and competently discuss any proposed topic. They can use the Internet to peek at something. But this rarely helps, because in this format it is not required that the teams operate with statistics or little-known facts. Basically, statements are based on basic information and logical chains. However, there are complex topics in which not everyone is competent. Then we give an info-slide, from which it becomes clear what there is a speech about, - explains Anastasia Prima, the head of Imperial Dispute.

The topics for teams come up with experts who are also the judges. They are experienced debaters - all have cups of winners following the results of Russian tournaments, some have won international tournaments.

In total, more than 100 people fought for victory.

Anastasia Prima tells us what topics they got:

- This Chamber believes that transnational corporations do more harm than good. This Chamber will allow the activity of bounty hunters - here we mean agents who, for reward, look for fugitive criminals, deserters, and suspects, who did not attend the court session; this practice exists in the United States. This Chamber approves the inclusion rider - this is a topic on how to deal with discrimination and whether it is worth doing it this way.

“This Chamber believes ...” is the traditional beginning of almost all tournaments in the British parliamentary format. The Chamber means a government that represents teams with a “for” position.

In determining the winner, experts assess the weight and persuasiveness of the arguments with which teams prove their point of view. Moreover, in every game, there is not only the position “for” or “against” wins: fans of teams can also participate.